Photograph of Benjamin Clayton (1892-1962), taken at the studio of A. Thawley, Leeds. Image courtesy of Gary Clayton.

When I first posted about Benjamin Clayton, I made reference to a military record (a WWI attestation paper) which I thought might belong to the Benjamin Clayton who is found in the household of Michael Moran (son of Francis Moran and Anne Galligan) in the 1911 census of Fitzroy township. Thanks to an email communication from one of Benjamin Clayton’s grandsons, I can now confirm that this was indeed the same person. He was born in Leeds, England on 16 September 1892; and he died at North Bay, Ontario, Canada on 1 February 1962.

In 1905, the orphaned Benjamin Clayton was sent to Canada (to St. George’s Home, in Hintonburg, Ottawa, one of the main receiving centres for Catholic Home Children from 1895 to 1930) with a party of boys from the Catholic Emigration Association.

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Emmett and his brother Donny served with the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II. Donny’s plane was shot down; and he spent time as a POW in a camp in Germany.

[When my dad was a kid, he heard tales of cousin Donny having been forced to eat “black bread,” presumably pumpernickel or something like that, which my grandparents, in all innocence, took as the highest refinement of military torture.]

When the war was over, Emmett went from hospital to hospital in the UK, looking for his brother. He finally found Donny in a military hospital on the outskirts of London, and stayed with him until he was ready to travel (but from some of his war injuries, including a broken bone that did not heal properly, he never quite recovered).

When Donny was deemed fit to return home, the two brothers took the train up to Edinburgh for the weekend to celebrate, and then shipped out to Canada.

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John Kelly’s trial for the murder of Michael Hourigan took place on Thursday, 20 May 1841, at the original Bathurst courthouse in Perth.1 The following is based on the account published in the Bathurst Courier (28 May 1841), which enlivened its recital of the facts of the case with bits and pieces of boilerplate didacticism (much like the tablid press of today).

A Fatal Affray

‘They finally made it up over some beer,…but got disputing warmly afterwards about a child.’

On Good Friday, 9 April 1841, John Kelly arrived at Henry Smith’s brewery “between 9 and 10 o’clock” in the morning, and “stopt some hours there.” His brother-in-law Michael Hourigan (spelled Horrogan in the newspaper account) came to Smith’s brewery at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon. While there initially appeared to be “some coolness between them,” the two men “finally made it up over some beer, at the suggestion of Horrogan.” However, the truce was short-lived; and Kelly and Hourigan “got disputing warmly afterwards about a child” (two-year old Ann Kelly, daughter of John Kelly and his wife Mary Hourigan and granddaughter and goddaughter of Mary [Lahey] Hourigan) in the presence of Henry Smith the brewer.

After leaving Smith’s brewery (whether together or separately is not clear), Kelly and Hourigan were seen together by two witnesses, John Brennan and William Headley, both residents of March township. William Headley was apparently the first of the two witnesses to see the two men together, when he and his wife came by in a sleigh. Having been shown “a stab on the side of [the deceased’s] head, inflicted by the prisoner,” Headley urged Michael Hourigan to get into his sleigh. Unfortunately, Hourigan refused, stating that “he would have satisfaction;” and Headley and his wife drove on.

At the northwest corner of Craig and Drummond Streets. This building, erected in 1822, was destroyed by fire on 1 December 1841 (Bathurst Courier, 7 Dec 1841), and replaced by a new District Court House and Gaol in 1842-43. ↩

The Queen vs. Kelly

“We are informed it was committed whilst in a state of intoxication,” wrote the Bathurst Courier (16 April 1841) of John Kelly’s fatal stabbing of his brother-in-law Michael Hourigan.

Not surprisingly, the Courier took a lively interest in the case, publishing three brief notices of Kelly’s arrest and detention, along with a lengthy account of his trial. A case like Kelly’s offered the newspaper a chance to entertain its readers with the lurid details of a brutal act of violence, while moralizing on the theme of peace, order, and good government. The fact that “the unfortunate man Kelly” was the only person arraigned at the Assizes for a crime, opined the editors at the Courier, “[said] much for the otherwise peaceable and orderly condition of the Districts.”